The Resting Place
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The Resting Place
Perfect Love That Makes Us Bold
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What if fear isn’t your opponent to outmuscle but a signal that love hasn’t finished its work yet? We explore how the Trinity’s invitation draws us into the “great dance” and why awareness—not just language—determines whether we actually live inside that reality. Rather than staging a tired match between “faith vs fear,” we anchor in Galatians 5:6 and 1 John 4 to show how faith truly works only when love fuels it, and how perfect love casts out fear’s authority so boldness can rise.
We get practical about spiritual senses, naming the difference between natural fear and being under the influence of fear. That distinction changes everything. When fear governs, we hesitate, stall, and ask permission from anxiety; when love matures us, we move at the Spirit’s impulse. Think of love as the gasoline and faith as the engine—you can have all the horsepower and still go nowhere if the tank is dry. We share stories, litmus tests for discerning the whisper, and the subtle ways passivity disguises itself as wisdom.
Zechariah’s encounter reframes disappointment as the soil where unbelief often grows. His silence wasn’t punishment; it was mercy that protected a promise and trained a father to raise a son who could recognize the Lamb when few could. That same mercy meets us in the corners of our hearts where the fear of man, fear of lack, or fear of missing it still decides when we obey. As conduits of heaven to earth, we’re called to carry kingdom culture into ordinary spaces—work, family, community—so that recognition of Jesus becomes second nature, not a rare surprise.
This conversation is for anyone tired of white-knuckling faith, ready to let love clear the gate and let faith actually run. You’ll learn how to awaken spiritual senses, respond to the Spirit’s whisper, and take the next step without waiting for fear to stand down. If this resonates, share it with a friend, subscribe for more, and leave a review telling us where love is setting you free next.
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Hi everyone, I'm Ben. And I'm Logan, and we're the Robins. Welcome to the Resting Place podcast. The whole logic of the incarnation is what? The Father, Son, and Spirit wanted to share their life with us. So they sent Yeshua to be the gateway that we could enter into relationship with the Father, Son, and Spirit. So Jesus comes and makes a way for us to. Jesus comes and makes a way for us to enter into the great dance, Pericuresis, the uh apostolic fathers, the patristic fathers coined that phrase, pericuresis, the circle dance that the Father, Son, and Spirit eternally enjoy, going, moving in and out and enjoying one another forever. And we get caught up in that in and through Jesus. In it's it's it's important that we're in Jesus, though. There's an in him dimension that we have to partake of in order to be caught up in that triune dance. And the cool thing about that is whether you realize it or not, you're there. But you have to become aware of it to enjoy it. You're there whether you know it or not, but in order to enjoy the benefit of the great dance, Baxter Kruger coined that phrase, the great dance, in order to, in order to enjoy the benefit of that and all that comes with it, what we then have to do is become aware of that. And I want to deal with something today, and I'm probably gonna use, I said I wasn't gonna talk about him anymore, but I'm probably gonna use Zachariah a little bit today, but it won't be the whole of the message, it'll just be a small part of that. Lou said you did an exhaustive job studying Zachariah. And I think what he meant was I exhausted everyone with Zechariah. I think I think anyone that's been following along is exhausted with Zechariah and tired of it. And I just, to you, I say, at least I'm not Apostle Ball. Apostle Ball did a 72-week series on the word if. 72 weeks on the word if. So that's a year and a half, just about on one phrase, if. So um Zachariah doing, you know, six or seven messages on him is quite a bit shorter than sixty, seventy-two weeks. But I want to deal with something today that if we don't allow the Lord to address it, we'll dull our senses to the point that we're unable to fully partake of what's been what we've been brought into. I don't even want to say what what's made available to us, what we have been brought into. There's an awareness level that we have to come to. There's an awareness level that we have to come to. And what do you do in order to increase awareness? You increase your senses, right? We we invigorate our senses, I think is a really good way to say that is our senses need to be invigorated. Our spiritual sense needs to be invigorated in order to become aware of what we have been brought into. And we use language like what's been made available, and I think that that's okay because really all of this is grasping at straws, trying to explain things that the English language really does a poor job of explaining. There are some things that that words kind of fall short on. It's like in the Old Testament when they would get caught up and see visions of angels and of heaven and of God, and they'd be like, it was like this. It was as a sardia stone. It was like, uh, I don't know, you say like the color purple or something. They use the like in in theology, they call it the like as principle, where you can use the word like and as because it's kind of like something, and it's sort of as though it's like this, but it's not quite like that. And I'm trying to explain something that really is unexplainable, and I'm using the English language in order to do that. And I feel like sometimes that's what we do with the finished work, is we're trying to explain what we've been brought into, but we're not quite able to really explain it. And we really need the help of the Holy Spirit to bring us into a spiritual understanding so that sometimes just our words fall short a little bit, and we have to bring our spiritual senses and our spiritual awareness up a little bit. Um, and part of the problem with being um with mental ascent is that it will leave you with just language. Part of the problem with mental ascent is it leaves you with just language. Now, language is important because language creates culture. Language is very important. But if all we ever have is language and we don't have the corresponding experience with our language, if we don't have the experience to correspond with the language that the Lord's helping us to develop, what then happens is we create an empty shell of something. It's like a big Morton building that looks like it's finished on the outside, but you go inside and it's exposed beams and it's exposed framing and there's no there's no insulation, there's no wiring, there's just a cement slab and a shell. And if we don't have the corresponding spiritual awareness, encounter, experience to correspond with the language that the Lord is giving to us. What will happen is we'll become like an unfinished Morton building. It'll be like an unfinished industrial building where we've got a shell, but we've got no substance to that shell. It becomes useless and good for nothing. You can keep it from getting wet, but that's about all. You keep things from getting wet in there, but that's about all you can do. Anyway. Galatians 5.6 says this. So I want to hopefully, but with the help of the spirit, deal very briefly with something, and then we'll we'll go back into worship. Galatians 5.6. I don't. The NLT does a poor job. The NLT normally doesn't do me wrong, but on occasion the NLT is like, come on, man. That's a bad translation. So I'm gonna read it from a different um different translation, bear with me. Thank God for blue letter Bible. For we through the he we through the spirit for we through the spirit eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness by faith, for in Christ neither circumcision nor sir uncircumcision avails anything, but faith working through love. For in Christ, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything. It doesn't give you any benefit to be circumcised or uncircumcised in Christ. So Paul's dealing with Judaizers that are going into the church and telling them you've got to become circumcised and follow the law. And one of the things that we forget, and this is a little bit of an aside, but one of the things that we forget about the early church is they were practicing Jews. They followed the law, they added faith to Jesus to come to bring completion to the law, but they still followed temple worship. That was still very much a part of their culture. They were a sect of Judaism until the Jewish uh leaders pushed them from um Judaism through persecution. For in Christ, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything, but faith working through love. And then one more. We're gonna go one more place. John chapter four. And I'll just continue to use blue letter Bible here because it's really convenient. First John four. And we'll go seventeen through nineteen. The consummation of love is how uh the New King James heads this little passage here. Love has been for Love has been perfected among us in this, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment. Man. Love has been perfected among us in this, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment, because as he is, so are we in this world. There's no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment, but he who fears has not been made perfect in love. Fear carries with it another translation will say, Fear carries with it the anticipation of judgment. We love him because he first loved us. I'm gonna read this in the NLT as well. And then I'll share for about five or ten minutes and then we'll be uh we'll close it up. So we will not be afraid on the day of judgment, but we can face him with confidence because we live like Jesus here in this world. Such love has no fear because perfect love expels all fear. If we are afraid, it is for fear of punishment, and it shows that we have not fully experienced his perfect love. We have not fully experienced his perfect love. If we are afraid of punishment, it shows that we have not fully experienced his perfect love. We love each other because he first love us. Because he first loved us. Um it's not a legal meeting unless you quote Damon Thompson or Bill Johnson, so you have to quote one of them. Um and I'll quote Bill here, but I'm gonna do it poorly, so if anyone knows the full quote, please chime in. Um Bill says something like this Any part of your life that's still under the influence of fear is subject to the power of a lie. Something like that. Something that's a rough paraphrase of a Bill Johnson quote. I want to say something like this. Any area of our lives that is subject to delusion is under the influence of fear. I believe fear and fear manifests itself differently in different scenarios and in different places, but I believe that fear, particularly fear, is the wellspring that delusion comes from. I believe that all delusion is a byproduct of our lives being somewhere subject to fear. And it's interesting to me how the Bible, you know, how Paul writes in Galatians that faith works by love, right? It's interesting to me that John then correlates love and fear, and he juxtaposes love and fear as opposed to faith and fear. What we do, especially in especially in um American circles, American churches, what we love to do is we love to talk about faith over fear because it makes a really great sign that you can put chalk paint on and put it up in your put it up in your kitchen. And every white woman somewhere has a faith over fear chalk paint sign somewhere in their kitchen or somewhere in their house. I'm gonna choose faith over fear today, by God. That's what we're gonna do. And the issue that we run into is we have, Debbie, do you have one? Please tell me you have one. And the issue that we run into is we have discipled ourselves into mishandling fear, and we have made fear and faith a fist fight. We make we make choosing faith a fist fight against fear, and we've got to choose faith over fear. It's a choice, guys. That's not how this works. Faith does not deal with fear, faith can't coexist with fear because fear is an indicator that you have not yet been perfected in that area of your heart by love. And faith springs out of being perfected in love. Faith is not the antithesis of fear, and fear is not the antithesis of faith. I hope antithetitheth. Antithesith. I can't even say it now. And I'm Sid the Sloth over here. Good lord. Y'all remember Sid? Yeah, it's just right from I'm age, I'm dating myself from Ice Age, the first one. Um man, I could go on a rabbit trail and shooting the rabbit or shot the rabbit, and I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna do it. I watched Randy Clark do that one time. I thought it was hysterical. And people still got still got healed when he got done. So I was like, you know what? The Lord's not offended by shooting the rabbit, so I can I can steal that from Randall and I can use it. Um faith is not the antithesis of fear, or it's not the opposite of fear, and fear is not the opposite of faith. Love is the opposing force that comes against fear in our lives. Love is not faith. And the issue that we run into when we start to, we have been so discipled, and I I know I've talked about this a lot, but I'm gonna continue to come back to this periodically because what we are doing here, what we are doing here is we are part of the new faith movement that is gonna move across this country. There's a new faith movement coming, and we're part of a new faith movement that's coming to this country. And it's there are other people that are doing it far grander and on far larger scale, but we're going to play our small part in being part of the new faith movement here. And I'm going to bring us back to the foundational truth of this every once in a while. When I feel the Lord tug on my heart to begin to teach on this again, one of the things that I want to teach us is that faith works by love. It works by love. Faith works by love, and love deals with fear, not faith. Love deals with fear. Love deals with fear. Faith never deals with fear, it's never dealt with fear and never will deal with fear. Love always is the force that drives fear from our lives. There's a saying that the old church likes to use that the Bible says fear not 365 times because he there's a new fear not for each day of the year, and it's just it's not true. It's it doesn't say it that many times, but it does say it over a hundred times. It does say it over a hundred times. That's one of the most repeated phrases in all of the scripture is fear not. And the issue that we run into is he's telling us to fear not because there's always going to be a reason to fear. That's part of the problem with this whole structure, this whole setup is there's always a reason to be afraid. There will always be a reason to be afraid, and fear does not always manifest. The challenging thing here is fear does not always manifest itself by what we would think of classically being afraid, like being terrified or being afraid of something. Fear will manifest itself in anxiety, fear will manifest itself in dysfunctional patterns in your life, fear will manifest itself in depression in your life, fear will manifest itself in being unable to make a change that you know that you need to make, and you just don't quite have the ability to make the change that you feel like you need to make. I would suggest that there's likely a piece of your heart or your mind that's under the influence of fear that is causing you to be unable to deal with the thing that the Holy Spirit is asking you to deal with. So Holy Spirit will come in a moment with grace to deal with something, and we're unable to deal with the thing he's asking us to. We just don't quite have the combustion. We don't have the gasoline in our engine to get it done. This is how faith and love work. Love is the combustion to the engine of faith. It's the accelerant, it's the thing that causes faith to be effective, it's the thing that causes us to be able to move in the areas that he's asking us to move. It's all driven by love. If we use the analogy of a vehicle, love is the gasoline to this thing. You can't go anywhere without it. You're in, you might have, listen, you might have a 450 horsepower engine under the hood. You may be as high speed and high power as any man that ever or woman that ever lived. You may be able, you may have the ability and the drive to get those things done, but without love being the driving force of that, you'll never even get off the starting block. It won't work. And Yahweh in his wisdom designed it this way. He designed it this way. Yes.
unknown:Can you have both at the same time?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, oh, absolutely. So one of the one of the one of the one of the uh one of the mistakes we make in teaching this is that they can't both coexist at the same time. I want to tell you, being afraid and like having natural fear of something is not the same as being under the influence of fear.
unknown:Oh, really?
SPEAKER_00:Yes. Okay. I want to tell you that's not the same because there are natural fears that will pop up when the Lord, so the Lord comes to us and asks us to do something that we've never done before, which he often will do, or he'll give us some impossible task. He'll come to us with a prophetic word, and it'll be the most amazing experience, and you'll lay on the floor and cry for hours. This is my experience. I'll lay on the floor and cry for hours. My God, it's gonna be so powerful. And then crickets. Well, Lord, how do I do this? And I get the cricket chirping noise that the old Bugs Bunny from the old Bugs Bunny cartoons and just cricket. Okay, well, um, how do I put some structure around this and what are the steps that I need to put into place to get this done? And I did just nothing. Nothing. And all of a sudden, fear starts to come into it. Well, what if you can't do it? Or what if this is too much for you, or what if this is too big for you? And I want to tell you that's different than being under the influence of fear. Having natural fear of something is not the same as being under the influence of that fear. So being under the influence of that fear, how I would define that, is refusing to take the step that Holy Spirit is asking you to take. That's being I feel the Holy Ghost on that. That's being under the influence of fear, is you are not taking the steps he asked you to take. It's not I'm afraid and I don't know what's gonna happen if. I take this step. It's taking the step in the confidence that he asked me to do this. So there must be grace, there must be empowerment for me to be able to do this. So I'm going to take that step, damn the torpedoes, and damn the voices that are speaking in my ear and speaking fear to me. I'm going to choose to obey the word of the Lord.
unknown:The prompting of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00:The prompting of the Holy Ghost. So we know that we're under the influence of fear in specific areas of our lives when we refuse to take the step we know we need to take. There's a step that we have to take in order to accomplish the thing that we know he's asking us to do, and we refuse to do it. That's being under the influence of fear. Letting it win, letting it influence you. And it manifests, like I said, it will manifest itself in different areas of our lives. It'll manifest itself in staying dysfunctional. It'll manifest itself in staying in cycles of dysfunction or depression, or there are other things that go into that. I realize there are chemical imbalances and things that go into that. So that's not, there are some specific genetic things that come into play there as well. That does happen. So I am fully understanding of that. That's a piece of that as well. But there's different ways that it will manifest itself. The Lord gives us a direct command, or not even when he gives us a direct command, he gives us a we hear that still small voice. And this may be the most obvious place that being under the influence of fear shows itself. Is we hear the, we feel the prompting, or there's the still small voice that gives us a subtle nudge to get something done, to do something, to stop what we're doing and do this instead, or to go approach that person, or to do this. I feel like maybe I'm supposed to do that. And what do we do in those circumstances is more often than not, we have so discipled ourselves into believing that we don't hear God well enough to do something like that. We just think it's ourselves and we move on. The issue with the voice of the Lord is it sounds like you. The issue that we run into with the voice of the Holy Ghost in our lives is the Holy Ghost sounds a lot like me. And so one of the one of the really practical litmus tests, I remember uh Pop teaching this. There was a young man who got saved early in his ministry, and he was fired up, man. He's fired up, and he comes to Damon uh after one of their services and says, Hey, uh, I was driving through McDonald's the other day and uh felt like I was supposed to give the uh drive-thru girl$100, and I didn't do it because I thought it was just me. And I thought it was just me thinking I should do that. And Damon said, Well, how many times have you gone, how many times have you gone through there ripped out of your mind, either drunk or high? And he said, Oh, more times than I can count. And he said, Well, how many times, while you were either drunk or high or not living how you were supposed to be living, did you feel like giving somebody a hundred dollars when you went through there? Well, none. Okay, well, that's how you know it was God. And not just you wanting to do that. We also we also need to understand this principle that, and I need to understand this principle that, and I'll use the example that I use when I'm talking to Samuel. I will sometimes tell him, hey, bud, I'm not gonna raise my voice to get you to listen to me. I'm gonna talk in my normal tone, and you need to be able to hear me and obey even though I'm not shouting. It's a little bit easier to get them to listen when you raise your voice, but I don't like to raise my voice that my kid. I don't enjoy that. It happens, but I don't enjoy doing that. That's not something that I take any pleasure in or is think it's a sustainable way to live. Yelling all the time and being mad all the time is no good. I hate it. Um so I just I'll tell them occasionally, buddy, I'm not gonna raise my voice to get you to listen to me. And one of the signs of a maturing son or a maturing daughter is that you can hear the whisper and heed the whisper as much as you heed the thundering voice from heaven that speaks directly into your spirit, and realize that you have been designed as a conduit from heaven to earth. You are a conduit from heaven to earth. That is what you are, that is what I am. We're sent here as conduits. What's a conduit? A conduit is something that's uh that something passes through. A conduit would be like an electrical conduit would be an electrical line that electrical impulses and currents pass through. It's also a hose. A hose is a conduit, it's a connection point that something passes through to its destination, right? And where is heaven coming? Here. Here. I know the church has taught us that the earth is going to be destroyed with fire, and that God is going to destroy the earth in order to create a new heaven and a new earth. The issue that we have is that we entered into a new heaven when Jesus completed his finished work. And we've been sent here as messengers of reconciliation to bring the to bring the cosmos, to bring creation into the realization that we have moved into the time of renewal. And it is impossible to be a messenger or to be a minister. Paul called us minister. We've been handed, according to Paul, we've been handed the ministry of reconciliation. It is impossible to be a minister of reconciliation while being under the influence of fear. Why is that impossible? Because fear will dull your spiritual senses to the point that you're unable to become aware of what you've been brought into and what's trying to come through you. How do we think the disciples' prayer is going to come to pass here on the earth? We call it the Lord's Prayer. It's not actually the Lord's Prayer, that's the Apostles' Prayer. The Apostles' Prayer. The Lord's Prayer is John 17. That's the Lord's prayer. When Jesus in the garden, we see him pray. That's the only, it's so interesting. It's the only glimpse we get into his prayer life. The only glimpse we get into the prayer life of Yeshua is John 17. It's the only one, it's the only time it records his prayer. I wish it would have done it a lot more. I wish it would have done it a whole lot more, but it's the only time that we get a glimpse. So I call that the Lord's Prayer, and the Apostles' Prayer really is what we call the Lord's Prayer, but thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Hmm. How do you suppose that's going to happen? Is heaven just going to manifest itself here? Just magically, one day heaven's going to come and everything's going to be made right. There is going to come a consummation of the age where heaven does come and everything is made right. But there are some steps between now and the consummation of the age that we are responsible for. And as conduits of heaven and earth, conduits from heaven to earth, what is going to happen is the culture of the kingdom comes through us. It comes through us. It does. And the primary, the primary block, people would say, and I'd feel free to think I'm wrong all you want. That's okay. You can be wrong. Sorry. It's alright. You can be wrong. I'm not mad at you when you're wrong. I'm just like you're not mad at me when I'm right. So um the primary issue isn't even sin. It's not. Because I believe I believe all sin is a fear response. I I've come to the I've all I've come to the conclusion where I believe that all missing the mark, especially if it's intentional, there are things that we do unintentionally that miss the mark. That that happens. But I believe that all intentional missing the mark is a behavior that is born from being under the influence of fear. I believe that it is. So how do we deal with it? Well, I'm gonna look at Zachariah here real quick. I'm gonna look at Luke 1 and then I'm gonna be done. I said I wasn't gonna talk long. I don't think I've been talking very long. Verse 13, Luke 1, 13, but the angel said, Don't be afraid, Zechariah. God has heard your prayer. Your wife Elizabeth will give you a son, and you are to name him John. You will have great joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth, for he will be great in the eyes of the Lord. He must never touch wine or other alcoholic drinks. He will be filled with the Holy Spirit even before his death, even before his not his death, even before his birth. And he will turn many Israelites to the Lord. He will be a man with the spirit and power of Elijah. He will prepare the people for the coming of the Lord. He will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, and he will cause those who are rebellious to accept the wisdom of the godly. Zachariah said to the angel, How can I be sure this will happen? I am an old man now, and my wife is also well along in years. I believe that response from Zechariah, although natural, I believe it was a response of don't get my hopes up again. I don't want to be disappointed again. He does he's afraid that he's going to be disappointed again. And his response is a response born from a place of fear. I don't believe it's born from an ugly heart or not wanting to have faith. I believe it's born from a place of perpetual disappointment. Disappointment is often a co-conspirator with fear and will cause us to respond that way when the word of the Lord comes to us. How can I be sure this will happen? Then the angel said, I am Gabriel, I stand in the very presence of God. It was he who sent me to you to bring you this good news. But now, since you didn't believe what I said, you will be silent and unable to speak until this child is born, for my words will certainly be fulfilled at their proper time. And then we know the rest of the story because I've read it five hundred and fifty-five times the last the last what three or four months that we've gathered. I've read it five hundred and fifty-five times. We understand this story. If you don't have this memorized at this point, I can't help you anymore. I've read it more times than any human should read a single passage back to back. But I believe that was born from a place of fear. And I've talked before how I believe it was the Lord's kindness to shut Zechariah's mouth so that he could teach him of his nature, so that the Lord could teach Zechariah what he's really like, because his son was going to have to be able to recognize something that the culture at large was unwilling, was unable to recognize. They were yearning for the coming of the Messiah. They were constantly praying for the manifestation of the Messiah. And when he came, their religious structure was unable to recognize or receive him. And Zechariah had to be the first one to understand the nature of the Father in a way that the high priest and the priestly class were unable to rec were unable to understand him. Because his boy was going to have to be able to look at Jesus and say, Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. That's him. That's the one we're waiting for. You can't see him, but I can see him because my father was so baptized in what the nature of God actually looks like. He taught me how to recognize Jesus. He taught me how to recognize Jesus. And there's an unseen generation that needs to be taught how to recognize Yeshua. And our current church culture is wholly unable to recognize Jesus. We're wholly unable to recognize him. We've got such opposing cultural dynamics inside of the church. I'm not even talking the culture at large. I'm talking the church as a whole. We've got such polarizing ideas of what God is really like. And on one side, he's angry, he's punitive, he gets mad really frequently. He poured his wrath out on Jesus, and that wasn't enough. He's still pouring his wrath out on us today. And every downturn in the economy, every unfortunate event in the culture, every downturn in our personal lives is attributed to the judgment of God coming against us. It's his judgment being rendered against us, and God's judgmental, he's easily upset, and we have to toe the line in order to keep him happy. And on the other side, he's so wholly permissive and so toothless that he's completely unable to deal with the things that afflict us. So we can have complete, we can we can live in ways that completely contradict the revealed will and nature of God, and he's so wholly permissive that he'd never come against that. And he, as a result of being so permissive, we've made him completely toothless and completely powerless. Lewis, C.S. Lewis made a really interesting, I think this is still probably a good way to describe uh Jesus. When asking about Aslan in the Chronicles of Narnia, is he is he safe? One of the kids asked, Is he, is he a safe lion? And the response was, he's good, but I wouldn't call him safe. He's good, but he's not safe. And Jesus is good, but I don't know. I don't know if our definition, I would say he's the safest place in all the world, but I don't think the English definition of what safe is is what Jesus actually is. I think there's a different definition of safe. Okay. So as a result of the opposing of the opposing revelation of God, we have a generation completely unable to recognize Jesus. And it's going to take, it's going to take a generation of people being willing to be brought in to the heart of God, to the heart of the Father, have the nature of the Father revealed to them so that we can then raise up a generation of children and those that are going to be brought to us that will be able to recognize Jesus when he manifests himself in the culture and bring about a cultural shift in our nation. We want to see a cultural shift in the church. It's going to take the nature of the Father being revealed to us to the point that we can see Jesus when no one else can recognize him. We can see Jesus when no one else can recognize him. And this is what I feel, and I'm done. This is what I feel. I felt the Lord whisper this to me, and I don't know how long he's going to take to do this. I'd like him to do this in about 30 seconds is what I'd like for it to take. This is what I'd like it to take. 30 seconds for this. I don't know how long this will, this sort of thing will take. But I felt the Lord begin to show me that he was going to set us free from slavery to fear in every area of our heart. That fear would no longer influence any part of our being. And what would it look like to live wholly free from the influence of fear? Not that you won't have natural fear come against you again. That's not being under the influence of fear. That's a state of being a human being. You're going to have things that make you afraid. That's part of it. But what would it look like to have my heart so thoroughly washed from the influence of fear that I don't hesitate when I know the step he's showing me to take. I just start stepping. That's what it looks like to be like the wind. Where it comes and where it goes, nobody knows. Where it comes from and where it goes, nobody knows. That's what it looks like. The mature sons are those that are led by the impulses of the Holy Spirit, Dr. Simmons translation. The mature sons are those that are led by the impulses of the Holy Spirit. It is impossible to be led by the impulses of the Spirit while we're still under the influence of fear. And that is something the Lord is going to deal with in this family. It doesn't have to be big. Doesn't have to be glaring. There's an old man back in the day in Carolina Revival, Dutch Sheets came and said, The Lord's sweeping out the corners. He's coming to sweep out the corners. And he looked at Damon and said, You still have some fear of man in you in your corners, and the Lord's gonna sweep out your corners. And I thought, old man, you have lost your mind. I don't know if you've ever heard him teach, but he obviously does not have the fear of man still alive in his heart. And about six weeks later, Damon got up and said, I could have punched that old man in the face for saying that about me in front of my church, but he was right. I did still have pieces of the fear of man in the corners of my heart that were coexisting with everything else. And I think there may just be some spaces of our hearts that still have the influence of fear guiding our decision making and guiding our obedience, guiding our decision making and telling us when it's safe to obey. Telling us when it's safe to obey and when it's Jesus, when it's not okay to obey. And what will happen then is the voice of fear will always override. When you're under the influence of fear, it will always override the gentle nudging of the Holy Spirit because he will not compete. He won't. Could you make it more clear? Sometimes in mercy, you can, man, sometimes in mercy you can lay out a fleece and it'll be wet one night and it'll be dry the next, and it'll be dry one morning and wet the next morning, and the Lord will still use you. That's that's okay, Gideon. Sometimes the Lord will do that. Out of mercy, sometimes, yeah, he will. But I would so much rather hear the whisper of the Lord and be willing, when I hear the whisper, to move forward where he's showing me to move forward without the influence of fear closing the gate before I ever get started. This will be my last illustration I'll use, and then I'll I'll close. In thoroughbred racing, horses are loaded up in gates before they start the race. And the jockey is on the horse. Because they're the rider, they're almost like the NASCAR driver on the horse, except it's not a car, it's a horse, and they're there to guide the race. But there's another individual inside that gate. And when the time comes to start the race, there's a button they push to open the gate. And fear will act like the man pushing the gate, pushing the button to open the gate in our lives if we allow it to. And when the time comes to start the race, that gate won't fly open. And we'll be stymied before we ever start. And I believe, I believe the Lord is inviting. He may just be this may just be for me. This the Lord spoke to me yesterday about something very specific. They said, You've had anxiety surrounding this your whole life. And it's time for you to come out of anxiety surrounding this because you'll never come into the increase that I have for you while you're still under anxiety in this area. So it's time for you to quit being under the influence of fear in this specific area because what it has done is it has shut off my blessing in that area and. My blessing is waiting to come to you until you do Jesus until you can deal with that fear. Because if you don't, you won't be a good steward. You won't be a good steward. And so I had to sit there and I had to just receive that little rebuke and say, you know what, you're right. I have been under anxiety and fear in this area my entire life. And it's time for that fear to walk out the door. So I'm asking the I'm asking the love of the Father to baptize that area of my heart so that I can so that I can move forward free and clear. Free and clear, and follow the voice of the Lord.